Can we call Meta the Miata of AI companies? It's the opposite of a Miata. You can't spend $100 billion on a Miata. So much of what Anthropik does is guided by anger and spite toward OpenAI and the people involved in OpenAI. And because of that, I think what you end up with is a lot of opposing energy, reaction to that. Have you guys been following the saga of Lillian Wang? I don't even know who that is. So, Lillian Wang was a co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, Mira Mirati's startup that is slowly but undoubtedly starting to release products, so we know what they're actually doing.
Maybe at the end of last week, she penned a lengthy missive, as one does in this age, about her mental health suffering by working so hard. So she was leaving. And this was met with Mira cheering her on for taking care of herself and a whole wave of all that take the time you need. I guess I read in The Information today that she started at OpenAI. That's funny. Oh, the bastion of mental health. More or less. Is it no or is it yes? We'll debate the text that's best. When we get more or less. Dave and Britt plus Sam and Jess. Put it all right to the test. More or less. Why hello. Welcome to More or Less, summer storm edition.
Sam, you look like you're in the middle of a squall.
I was. I moved in. Now there's children running around everywhere. I'm just trying to be outside so I can actually do More or Less. Because outside in a storm is the optimal audio condition for a podcast. That's all I got, guys. That's all I got. The weather is beautiful here in San Francisco. Okay. I have a very good, structured episode planned with lots of important topics, so I will just tune out the children in my ear. I'm coming to you live from South Park in San Francisco, AI ground zero. Are you in a car? Am I the only person who managed to find a table? What's going on?
This is the first time I'm pulling a Sam during the More or Less pod, so I feel proud of myself for being a little bit less buttoned up this time around. Okay. We're telling our audience exactly how much we care about them, which is a lot because we're willing to fit this podcast into extremely busy lives. I was on a very important AI compute-related mission and had to get it done. Here I am.
Okay. Well, that is one of our three topics today, so buckle up, folks. We've got Meta, its new ad campaign, earnings, other things going on there. Mark has taken up the pen and is writing op-eds like it's his second job. Big news out of The Information about China catching up and some very important technology that wildly moved the stock market this week, so we have to talk about that. We do have to talk about this compute debate raging on X that seems to be very, very hot at the moment. Anything else you guys want to add to the list? Let's go. No. Okay. Britt's working, so unfortunately, we don't have her. I will try to channel Britt as much as possible.
But first, guys, I have some big news this week. This has been a milestone week for me. Can I tell you about it? Yes. Yes. Is it about Benson Boone? No. No Benson news at the moment. I learned to make a proper cappuccino. So if you'll indulge me for one second, Sam and I are probably customer number one of the Breville cappuccino machine. This was an item featured on The Information's Holiday Gift Guide circa four years ago, and we won't say how many we have because it's embarrassing, but we have a number of them. More than three. Great, Sam. Wait, does this mean you're going to upgrade to a real espresso machine?
No. No, no, no, no. But I was yesterday years old when I learned that the pressure dial on the front of the Breville is not a mere ornament. No. Rather, a signal of whether you are getting the right amount of pressure through your cappuccino-making process. And I've got to give credit where credit is due. The great Jessica Sittig, one of the most prolific espresso drinkers in the world, has— Yeah, she is one of the greats. —has tutored me in this. And it's game-changing. Now, unfortunately, though, it also led to an overuse of said machine that tripped all the breakers in our cottage. So it's not without its consequences, but it's been life-changing.
What tripped all the breakers was the wire fraying to the cottages, which apparently there's an emergency PG&E check or whatever it is, Constellation, whatever. Well, it did only fray the ones adjacent to the cappuccino machine, so I still think there is a connection. But it's on the street. Literally several cabins don't have power properly. Sam, are you letting facts get in the way of a good story? Listen, I'm tethering on wire. I'm looking forward to getting you guys into upgraded espresso gear. It's never going to happen.
Well, I just want to say that I appreciate this because I feel like it has taught me to slow down and pay more attention in life in general. I've stared at that pressure gauge forever, all the time, and it never once occurred to me that I was trying to get the red arrow into the espresso range. I have a different interpretation. Okay, Sam, you got to turn. Which is, listen, coffee's not cheap. And watching Jessica Sittig sit there and twist the dial and pour out coffee grinds and twist the dial—this is pounds of coffee going through the machine and directly into the trash. Oh, Sam. I'm like, it's exactly how you're spending tokens.
It's called a pull. It's called a pull, like a pull request. How is this any different than tokens? I don't throw the tokens in the garbage. Where do they go? I think there was one or two spare pulls. One or two spare pulls. And honestly, it was just in the pursuit of perfect pressure. Okay, for the pressure. I mean, I drank all the—I kept saying, let me have the ones that don't have the espresso mark because they're fine. You got the slop. You got the AI slop. I'm happy to drink slop all day long. Sam's fine drinking coffee slop. I don't understand people's—coffee tastes like coffee. It doesn't matter. But I'm glad that you have a new dial to look at.
It's so less bitter, and it's so satisfying because you watch it and you're like, is it going to get there? Is it going to get to espresso range? I don't know. It sounds like we should introduce you to something called Kalshi so you can bet on it, Jess. We can have a Kalshi betting— In my mind, getting the coffee to pull properly actually increases the amount of caffeine per shot. I don't think that's the actual chemistry, but that's in my mind what's happening. I just feel like I have a new artisanal routine for a gadget that I have a lot of CapEx invested in, and I feel good about that. And Sam can have the slop, but I'm a new person. Caffeine runs Silicon Valley.
Listen, Jess had a good insight about these Breville machines, which is, you know those water bottle things with, like, 87 bottles of water saved this year because you use the water filter machine thing? This is a good insight. I really want that thing to have a counter, and it would be even great if it was connected to the internet. So you're like a rat hitting the button. I want that data set, and then I want a physical counter of the number of espressos that have gone through because that's kind of fun, right? Yeah. The amortization. But we're seeing AI economics in our coffee habit. Should we talk about tech?
Yeah, no, we're getting to that. But I think this is important. I will say, the Brevilles have also gotten cheaper. Have you noticed? No. This one was only like $500. The one before it was like $800. So the cost of—there's something going on with the mass production of Breville. Sam, the Breville is like the Miata of coffee machines, and I love Miatas and Boston Whalers. It's all the same category of thing. Yeah, it's perfect for you guys. Okay, speaking of the Miata of AI companies—the last thing our friend—that people will never visit us again if they just end up on the podcast. Though we could really use them. Can we call Meta the Miata of AI companies?
I don't know what that means. Is that a pivot that we can make? I don't know. No. I mean, they spend so much. They have so much infrastructure. It's the opposite of a Miata. Have you noticed? No. This one was only $500. The one before it was $800. So the cost of there's something going on with the mass production of Breville. Sam, the Breville is the Miata of coffee machines. And I love Miatas and Boston Whalers. It's all the same category of thing. Yeah, it's perfect for you guys. Okay, speaking of the Miata of AI companies, the last thing, our friend, that people will never visit us again if they just end up on the podcast. Though we could really use them.
Can we call Meta the Miata of AI companies? I don't know what that means. Is that a pivot that we can make? I don't know. No, I mean, they spend so much. They have so much infrastructure. It's the opposite of a Miata. You can't spend $100 billion on a Miata. It's like a battle, it's like an aircraft carrier. Yeah, fair enough. Okay, mark that shift to hard tech topics. Now, Kimi is the Miata of AI. GLM, maybe. Sure. We're not. I actually don't have open source on the agenda at the moment. And let's keep it that way. All right, let's talk Meta. Did you guys see Meta's new ad campaign? Yeah, I did. Yes.
Dave, reactions? Two thumbs up, two thumbs down? Are you talking about the, I mean, this is clearly an integrated campaign where we've got letters, we've got interviews in the FT, we've got videos. Are we talking about the whole thing or just the ad? Let's start with the ad and then go to the campaign. I like innovation, not automation. That's a good vibe. That was what I took away from it that I liked, right? It was this whole AI is not for automation, it's for innovation. I'm not sure it's true or not, but I like the vibe of it. Okay. Let me recap this first.
So Meta comes out with this ad, and sharp listeners of the pod will note that I emphasized this point in the launch of their latest glasses, which was AI is for everyone. Right. That seems to be the new tagline. It's the campaign tagline. It is a theme that runs through interviews and op-eds Mark wrote this week or published this week. The idea being, there's a narrative out there that it's elitist, that it's all about profit-ringing, that it's evil. We reject that. We think it is the latest tool that will further the democratization of technology in the hands of billions of people, fostering creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, all that kind of stuff.
Is that a decent summary of what you guys think the talking points of the campaign are? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think AI for everyone. Okay. Of the ad campaign again or the blog posts? Well, both. Right. Well, Dave, with that as a loose backdrop, what jumped out at you about it? I mean, I think that this, I'm trying to pull it up right now, but I could not agree more. But you have no internet connection, so good luck. We can tell you're trying to pull it up because you're crushing your internet connection. I could not agree more. Either that or you're scrolling Instagram. That's you, Sam. Sorry, you don't have enough bandwidth. Let's just shop while you record right now.
It's true. I don't even have a second device on me because my other phone's out of battery. So my understanding of this campaign is that Mark is trying to project an optimistic view of the future of technology and AI. And I believe it's in the blog post that he wrote, that he just can't understand how someone who believes that AI is going to automate and take away everyone's jobs and threaten the future of society would continue to work on building AI technology. That, to me, was the strongest statement that I think he made in his piece. And I just couldn't agree more with this perspective. Obviously, I'm speaking my own book here.
I'm spending an enormous amount of time working on OpenClaw and trying to give people a much higher-agency version of AI that is much more personal and much more individually empowering. And I guess that's what I'm hearing from Mark, and it's the first thing that he's written in a long time that's shining through and breaking through in a way that, to me, is very distinct and different for both Mark and Meta. And I think it's really cool and pretty great. And I think it's awesome that he put the muscle of not just pen, but creating a video version of that message. And then it looks like they deployed it out across the entire Facebook network, across every single surface.
And so I do think people need to hear the optimistic side of this take. I mean, we've talked about the pessimist side and the doomer side of this across many, many episodes of this pod. So props to Mark for sending that message, is my take. I'm angry at that. I mean, look, it's just like Star Wars. It's the dark side of the force and the light side of the force, right? And in some ways, the dark side is easier. Certainly an easier message to sell and raise capital against and a bunch of other stuff. But ultimately, the light side of the force, which is this is how you do it for good, is, I think, hopefully ultimately victorious and the better message.
It's just hard for other people to pull off. I mean, I think it's very easy to sell the negative story, especially in a place of non-incumbency. I think Mark is one of the rare leaders who actually is in a position as a founder at a trillion-dollar scale, who already has all the people on his platform, who can try to tell the light side of the story, is what I would say. And look, they're probably both true. The force does have two sides. It always does. So do you believe it, or do you think it's part of the truth, or do we not know and we just need to put everything into a box right now, but no one really knows? I mean, it's almost certainly all of the above.
It's almost certainly all of the above. I mean, look, I'm case study zero of this because, in a lot of ways, Jess knows this, my relationship with my bot infrastructure has only grown exponentially. You told me I was only allowed to tell you one more thing the bot told me last night. Guys, I'm worried. You shouldn't be worried, but it's sick. Last night, Sam is like, no matter what he's doing, if Sam has a smile on his face, it's because his bot has told him something interesting about him. And on one hand, that's really cool. It's so cool. And on one hand, that's a little bit scary because people and other people aren't going to communicate that way to him. Slash me. No.
And I just want to make sure that you have space and accommodation in your brain for human communication. Look, I've turned the corner with the infrastructure I built around AI personally, where it's yielding awesome stuff for me. I'll give you an example. I fed it like four gigs scanned of my dad's journals and work logs from the late 80s through current day. And the stuff it pulled out of it, about history and Hitler, is just flooring. That's cool. Right. And so I was having a conversation back and forth with this infrastructure I built about his personal life and history and business deals and career and different characters.
And it's just a level of depth in, you would never. It's so cool. I also have gotten nerded out pretty deeply on the health data side of it. So now I'm feeding it Garmin and Oura and Apple Health and six other devices and integrated all the data sets. Yeah. We talked about this, but yes. Well, but it's like, I mean, I actually sent to someone involved in Oura, it basically was giving me, this morning, it was like, okay, they figured out my new thresholds for zones of training, pushed it to my watch to update all the settings automatically without even asking. It knew how to do it and what I wanted.
And then gave me the variance against Oura, which I then sent to someone who works at Oura on where Oura is making mistakes in heart rate measurement. And it's just getting so powerful. So the light side of the force is, I feel like I'm getting all this data about the world and my life and interactions and making better decisions because of it. And it's great. I think I'm like six clicks more aggressive and removed from how other people are using it. The way I have my stuff set up, I think, is beyond what almost anyone off the shelf can find with respect to OpenClaw. It was giving me this this morning.
It was like, okay, they figured out my new thresholds for zones of training, pushed it to my watch to update all the settings automatically without even asking. It knew how to do it and what I wanted. And then gave me the variance against Aura, which I then sent to someone who works at Aura on where Aura is making mistakes in heart rate measurement. And it's just getting so powerful. So the light side of the force is, I feel like I'm getting all this data about the world and my life and interactions and making better decisions because of it. And it's great. I think I'm six clicks more aggressive and removed from how other people are using it.
The way I have my stuff set up, I think is beyond what almost anyone off the shelf can find with respect to open cloud. You're just not going to build it. It takes more than is obvious, but it's great. So all for the light side on a personal level, I don't think that that is going to change the world fundamentally. I just think it's good. Whereas I think the stuff, and by the way, I could go on and on about four other use cases running for me that are amazing. I'm, there's so many things that I'm thrilled about what it's doing for me personally. On the professional side, we know that the narratives run faster than reality. The narratives are super scary.
The narratives are super distortionary. The power dynamics are super scary.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we know that side. So I think they're both true. I think the question is what story dominates. And that's the unclear question. But if Mark wants to work on taking the ridiculous level of infrastructure I've built out around AI and trying to commercialize it and give it to the world, well, God bless. I mean, it is pretty cool. Yeah. I think it's interesting to see now the real riot. I mean, everyone's just trying to say, we are not Anthropic in some way because Anthropic is winning. And Anthropic also has some of the biggest problems in Washington. And so you're seeing all this branding and messaging that sees.
Yeah, the rebel alliance has formed. Yeah. I don't think it's a bad time to be the empire either, Dave, but that's a different story. I think this is a good, let's keep going. I think it's one of the things that you're saying, if you're saying Star Wars, Dark Side, Light Side, which is if you ask a year ago who is the evil empire and who's the rebel alliance, you probably would have said the evil empire is OpenAI and the alliance is everyone else. And actually NVIDIA is the emperor. Right. It's like OpenAI is the Death Star slash Darth Vader, but Palpatine is Nvidia, right? There's some version of that. You're getting really into it. Yes. Okay.
But OpenAI would have been the evil empire and Anthropic would have been part of the Rebel Alliance. Now things change so quickly that maybe Anthropic is, although they're great. I mean, I use their stuff all the time. I love the empire, but it is interesting to kind of how it's all playing out. Your bot is an empire bot. Your bot is a dark side bot that you are using. The core of it is. The core of Fable is the core decision maker. There's a bunch of other stuff it uses, but Fable is the ultimate decider in my infrastructure.
I mean, I think that this analogy is super interesting because the Star Wars analogy, if you go to the scene, I believe it's in Empire Strikes Back. It might have been Return of the Jedi. I can't remember where Luke confronts the emperor and Darth Vader. The scene plays out where Luke is having to decide whether or not to succumb to his anger. And the emperor says to him, give in, Luke. Give in to your anger. Let the power flow within you. Let the power flow within you. And what's interesting, I think, about this analogy is that so much of what Anthropic does is guided by anger and spite towards OpenAI and the people involved in OpenAI.
And because of that, I think what you end up with is a lot of the opposing energy reaction to that. Right. You have this reaction happening in the valley where a lot of people are saying, why do you constantly talk to me as though you are better than me, as though you are angry towards this other entity? Right. Right. And I think that that's actually one of the more interesting things to talk about and look at here. There's a very human story playing out behind this. Is it that, or is it more Lord of the Rings? So it's the ring of power. And I don't know. The question is, and you basically, it's too tempting to use. Right. I don't know. It's interesting.
Or is it Mean Girls? It might just be Mean Girls. Probably not Mean Girls, but say more. You guys don't know what that means. If Britt was here, she would say it's Mean Girls. Yeah, I think it's Mean Girls. But honestly, I think it is also interesting to remember, though, that Anthropic came out swinging on the brand first by basically going right for the jugular of OpenAI when it was the evil empire with those, like, we won't run ads. I mean, do you guys remember? I think it was a Super Bowl ad. This has been going on for a while. I mean, Jess, that's because that's the view, right? It was literally born out of we are leaving OpenAI. OpenAI is evil and is the empire.
And so, therefore, we are going to go create an opposing force. But then. But just to push, here's the other way to look at it, which is OpenAI is the original empire, right? And what they basically said is there's a power vacuum on AI. It's going to be so powerful that even if it's dangerous, we better be the ones to control the dangerous force ourselves because otherwise bad people will have it. And at least we're good people. That was the original framing, right? Yeah. I mean, Sam, that's the truth. Well, actually, if we go way back, they were worried that Google was that. Now, I'm just showing off how long I've been following this.
But it was called OpenAI because it wasn't Google. Yes. But finish your point and then we're moving on. Everyone thinks. That's why it's like Lord of the Rings. We can talk about the ring of power. One ring to rule them all. One ring to guide them. Is everyone like, okay, there's a new power in the universe, right? And it could be the force early on, whatever, but the force is ancient. So it's a new power. And it's so powerful and dangerous that we have to be the ones to wield the power to save everyone else, right? But then the power is ultimately corrupting. Like the ring of power. Right. Yes.
And so, then basically you have these generations of people being like, oh my God. We have become the thing we feared. And therefore, we must leave to fight back against the evil empire. But then, honestly, the power is corrupting. So the interesting thing about Mark, to take it back in Meta. Meta is the rare company that's powerful enough on its own that they're going to be like, it'd be very easy for them to go dark, right? And just be like, we will engage it. But they're like, no, we're powerful enough to wield the light side of the force, right? We are like Tom Bombadil. We don't need to take the dark side of the force. And we're going to take it on.
That's an interesting, I don't know. There's something in here that's interesting. I guess, though, that deserves a steel man on the other side. Tom Bombadil is the best character in Lord of the Rings, for what it's worth. And I was really upset. I think Peter Thiel finally made a company Bombadil, which pissed me off. Because it is by far, he is by far the best character. Even though he's missing from the movies. Okay, Dave, last comment on this and then we're moving on. I mean, I think that there's sort of a, you have to steel man the other side a little bit, which is that you're right that Meta is one of the rare companies.
I mean, it's one of the only companies with a founder still running it, that serves consumers directly, that has enormous scale, that can telegraph a message like this. But at the same time, Meta is still a centralized company. There's something in here that's interesting. I guess, though, that deserves a steel man on the other side. Tom Bombadil is the best character in Lord of the Rings, for what it's worth. And I was really upset. I think Peter Thiel finally made a company Bombadil, which pissed me off. Because he is by far the best character. Even though he's missing from the movies. Okay, Dave, last comment on this, and then we're moving on.
I think that there's, you have to steel man the other side a little bit, which is that you're right that Meta is one of the rare companies. It's one of the only companies with a founder still running it, that serves consumers directly, that has enormous scale, that can telegraph a message like this. But at the same time, Meta is still a centralized company. They run a massive centralized infrastructure that is dependent on advertising for the majority of their revenue. And whether or not they will actually put the power in the hands of the people, I think is yet to be seen.
One of the reasons I'm personally working so much on OpenClaw is that I really believe that we have to put the power in the hands of the people. You have to take the computer out of the cloud, just like in the 70s, the computer had been used to implement the Holocaust, right? IBM had used giant computers to do the Holocaust. And so a lot of what happened with the personal computer movement in the 80s was trying to get the personal computer as a tool into the hands of the people. And that's the question that I have here: will Meta be a force for bringing this power truly to the people?
Or will it continue to centralize the resource and try to grab the ring itself, like you're saying, Sam? And will it just be the next in the line? Will it be the next after-and-profit? But Dave, just to push you, decentralization is a great political movement in a lot of ways. And there's a few examples like Bitcoin where it's worked. But in the Star Wars universe, the Rebel Alliance sucks, right? They're not capable of winning. They're totally losing. And it's only because you have a young Jedi come along that saves their ass, right? And so I guess the question for me is, do we really believe that a distributed open movement can win here against empires?
Or is it more that you need a Jedi? We know, Dave, say your answer, but we all know what you think because you've been very consistent about it. I don't think that it's necessarily about open decentralized movement. I do think it's about, I think about it through the lens of the personal computer. We must put in the hands of the people the most powerful possible version of AI so that individuals have true agency. Whether or not that's a for-profit company that does that, like a future Apple of some kind, or whether or not it's an open source project, doesn't matter to me. It matters to me more that the directionality of the movement is going in that direction.
Hilariously, though, Apple's a great story because, as a very smart friend pointed out to me recently, it was a political movement. It wasn't a technological one. Early Apple computers sucked, right? It was completely a political thing of value that drove it. But now, years later, they're the ultimate centralized player, right? So it's one of those things where you become the thing you're set up to fight, right? It's a political movement for decentralization that became the most centralized company in the world. I don't understand that at all. I'm talking to you on a computer that I own, that I have all of my files on. I have a phone.
I have truly powerful tools in my hands that I can use to do things. But you can't use them however you want. Yes, I can. You can't put whatever you want in the App Store. It's totally locked down. Now, I'm not saying you can't... It's just interesting. Linux is open. I don't think Apple's an open company. I can put anything I want on a Mac. Yeah. Okay. We've gotten off track here. So have we resolved this? Obviously, there's openness at different layers, right? I think that... And it's interesting because Mark's vision isn't really explicitly about open or closed.
It's about putting the technology in the hands of people, which I think is aligned with your personal computer vision, Dave. But we will see. Meta reported earnings that were disappointing, but mostly because they spent a lot of money on lawsuits and laying people off, severance. So... What happened to the stock price instead of interest? Yeah, I didn't see this. What's the headline, Jess? I believe it went down. I can't look it up because I don't have a computer I can use right now. Oh, I'm also the scribe of the internet for you chuckleheads with shitty internet connections because this has only been on your calendar for three months, but that's okay.
Well, it's just an AI situation. Let's see. How is Meta trading right now? Meta is trading down a percent on the day. That's not that bad. So down a bit. Oh, good. We can still afford the Breville. Thank God. That's not that bad. But no, I don't think it's that bad. No, a percentage, they did what the market expected. And the CapEx guidance shifted slightly, the low end shifted slightly. But we're not talking about any astronomical swings here. Last week, which we didn't talk about, you have to talk about the macro, which is the entire market is down today, right? It's a down day. So that's a great segue. Market-wise. Into not so much today.
But The Information had a major story this week that we don't have to go deep into, because I know you guys are all fans of lithography as much as I am. But our team out of Asia had a piece that China domestically has been making big progress in extreme ultraviolet lithography, which is how... Actually, sorry, not the extreme one. The other one. Just deep ultraviolet lithography, which is a key step in chip making, right? How you actually etch patterns on wafers. The extreme one, or enhanced or extreme, I should know this. Extreme is much more cutting edge, and China is still far behind on that.
But this story obviously majorly moved the market for ASML, the company that currently has cornered the market on this technology. But I read a lot of analyst reports about overall sentiment in AI that cited it as well. So I think it's really interesting. Not that we go deep into the tech stack or US-China AI developments, but this is a big deal. We know way more about Star Wars than we do about lithography. Yeah. But this is a big deal. And I think it is also significant, more broadly, to the point of the jittery nature of investors right now in terms of how this will all play out. But I think I've said this before, but I'm always surprised.
In Washington, tech execs go to Washington to say, we have to beat China in AI at all costs. Privately, or even semi-privately, the exact same people say, obviously, the US and China are going to both be leaders in AI. Yeah, totally. They reject that the war narrative makes any sense. And then three weeks later, they pick up the talking point that's expedient in the moment, which I get. But having witnessed that, this has always been very top of mind for me. And so I think this story is really important in that regard. And— Pooja. Jess, are you saying that people say things in public that they don't necessarily believe? Yeah, I do. Oh my God.
We can't say who because we'll get really in trouble, but my jaw dropped hearing some of these people just sort of, a moderator tees up a question about the war, and they're like, oh, it's a stupid question. We're both going to win. Next question. That is how dismissive they are privately about this. So, yes, it's true that China has not, there have been areas of manufacturing or technology where China's had a national push and not made progress. I think jet engines is one someone was telling me, not an expert in that either. Yeah, that's correct. But it seems completely obvious to me that lithography they're going to figure out, and they're figuring it out.
And I think that's interesting. I do. Oh, my God. We can't say who because we'll get really in trouble. But my jaw dropped hearing some of these people. A moderator tees up a question about the war, and they're like, oh, it's a stupid question. We're both going to win. Next question. That is how dismissive they are privately about this. So, yes, it's true that China has not, there have been areas of manufacturing or technology where China's had a national push and not made progress. I think jet engines is one someone was telling me. Not an expert in that either. Yeah, that's correct.
But it seems completely obvious to me that lithography they're going to figure out, and they're figuring it out. And I think that's interesting. I'm also damn impressed with my reporters because that is not an easy story to break, let me tell you. Okay, let's talk a bit about compute. Dave, you said you are ferrying compute across San Francisco. Would you like to elaborate on that at all? No. But... Okay, you can say no. But when I think of compute... That's like when you used to do the sneaker net, when it used to be faster to throw a hard drive in your passenger seat than it was to move it over the internet. Those were the days. I just feel like...
You used to be able to ship hard drives to S3. Remember that? Yeah. You still do that? When I think of compute, I think of data centers, which don't... Well, what's the question, Jess? Okay, here, I'll ask a question. So I also actually want to briefly talk about X, which seems to become... Love X. Mildly relevant again. So fun. And also, guys, since I have a strong internet connection, I have been able to multitask throughout this podcast, and I just went to X to look something up, and Mark just followed me on X. So this is a very exciting day. Mark Zuckerberg's following me on X. More important as that is, he's on X following people.
But to wrap up the compute point, the hedge fund Gavin Baker types of the internet and tech investing seem to have very tense debates about what's going to happen to compute in the near term, next 18 months. And some people think that it's just going to get wildly more expensive, aka much better margins for the businesses powering it. And others think the opposite is going to happen. And it's pretty tight. People are like, some of their analysis is based on, well, these longer-term contracts are going to come up, and then they're going to have to renew at much higher rates.
I kind of assume that the labs have figured that out and aren't just going to have to triple their AWS spend over. So I don't really buy that, which was part of Gavin's analysis. But Dave, you're closer to this. Do you think there is a clear pattern on compute pricing over the next, say, 12 months, six months? What are all these investors in a tizzy about? I don't really understand what the market is doing right now. My intuition is that there's something else that's causing this to happen in the markets. It's strange. You've got RAM stocks that are super down. Micron is, I don't even know, down 15% or something like this.
There's a bunch of those types of analyses that are running around. I can't comment on what's going to happen with this contract or that contract. But here's the thing that I know from the front lines, which is that everyone is compute-constrained. And everyone at every manufacturer is trying to develop, manufacture chips, RAM. The entire supply chain is operating at complete capacity to fill the demand. I don't see any signal that the demand for tokens is going down. I only see bottlenecks.
I mean, I was mostly joking with you earlier, Jess. The reason that I'm in San Francisco is that at OpenClaw, we've been highly constrained on compute around the Mac operating system. Our ability to do multi-agent agenda engineering is constrained by the amount of RAM and the amount of Apple Silicon we can deploy against running agents. And so we've actually now worked in partnership with Apple to develop a bunch of Mac Studios in custom configuration that is enabling us to unblock our engineering team's ability to be extremely productive.
And so I only see engineering bottlenecks right now. And so I don't totally understand what's going on with all these analyses because my empirical experience on the ground is that we're constantly trying to figure out how to get more tokens, get those tokens at an efficient cost, deploy the right tokens against the right tasks and workloads. And that goes across the stack from frontier tokens to directly renting B300s and B200s to the Mac Studios that we need on the desks of engineers to manage the agents in the first place. It's constrained across the board. And so I don't see where the dip in demand is personally, and I don't see it across my portfolio either.
So again, I work at a different part of the stack, but that's what it looks like from my vantage. Dave, your connection is getting a little spottier, so we might wait a second because it's going in and out a bit. But to be clear, what are these Mac, what part of the process are they being used? In order to run multiple agents at once, your Mac has to manage each thread, right? So if you're running one, two, three, 10, 100 agents at the same time, whether they're running through codex, pi, OpenClaw, or whatever, you have to have memory and compute available locally on your machine in order to run that process.
And so you're only constrained by the power of the computer sitting on your desk to manage multiple at the same time. But why are you doing anything locally? I don't understand. I run very powerful computers in the cloud for things I want to do. I would never run anything locally on my machine. Why is anyone doing anything locally? You need both. But why? Your machine has to be talking to the ones in the cloud. No, I have one machine in the cloud that manages the other machines in the cloud. I could do it on my iPad. But you still have to talk to that machine.
I don't know. I kind of get it, but not really. Why you have to have things on your desktop. I can code anything I want off my iPhone, just tunneling into one machine and then having it manage a bunch of other machines. Yeah, I mean, but you have to have that machine. Whatever machine you're talking to, whatever machine you're coordinating or orchestrating with, has to be very powerful. And you're right. Sure. But why does that have to be... it doesn't have to be local.
I mean, this is the thing. To me, increasingly, my laptops are truly dumb terminals, right? I have laptops. I have one that's an off-the-shelf cheapo Air and whatever. I don't feel constrained by that at all. Now, I'm not doing serious engineering, but I am curious what anyone's trying to do locally versus just having an instance in DigitalOcean or AWS that then manages a bunch of instances that can be as beefy as you want it to be. If you're running 50 codex agents at once from your Mac, you have to use a Mac with a lot of RAM. Who needs to run 50 codex agents? In order to do engineering. That's how we're doing engineering on OpenClaw.
Right. But how many people are running 50 agents at once? A lot. A lot. Okay. Our entire engineering team. Okay. Well, the non-engineers here... The non-engineers here. I get it. I get it abstractly. I have to update, by the way. Metastock is down 10%. I need to... Oh, but return the Breville. Return the Breville. Return the Breville. Okay. So we're confused about compute. We see huge demand. The compute conversation continues. Let's talk about X for a second. Love X. Sam, you said you love X. Journalists have always had a love-hate relationship with X. Who needs to run 50 codex agents? In order to do engineering. We're, that's how we're doing engineering on OpenClaw.
Right. But what, how many people are running 50 agents at once? A lot. A lot. Okay. Our entire engineering team. Okay. Well, the non-engineers here. The non-engineers here. I just, I get it. I get it abstractly. I have to update, by the way. Metastalk is down 10%. I need to... Oh, but return the Breville. Return the Breville. Return the Breville. Okay. So, we're confused about compute. We see huge demand.
The compute conversation continues. Let's talk about X for a second. Do you... Love X. Sam, you said you love X. Journalists have always been a love-hate relationship with X. But it is really clear now that, to me, X is not just the town square, but it's really the AI town square. Do you guys feel that, too? Yes, for sure. For sure. And obviously, we've had... Well, Mark re-invigorated his X presence. It's the tech town square. It's not just the AI town square. Jensen joined. Bernard Arnault also joined. So, it's also the piss-against-the-media town square. But, yeah, I'm curious what you guys are saying. Look, I think, honestly, I'm very pro...
As a user, I've consistently used X since 2007. Although, admittedly, when I was at Facebook, I didn't engage that much for a few years. But it's always been great. I think Makita's been doing a great job. And I think it's better now than it was before. I think the conversation is stronger there than it ever has been. It's also really funny. I also use threads. I use threads out of loyalty. And I will say that it's pretty funny. I end up in threads. I don't go to threads, but I spend time in threads. Because I click on things on Instagram. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because you click on things on Instagram and then you end up... But here's the funniest thing.
I very frequently will double post. So, I'll post things on threads and X at the same time. And it's really funny because on threads, threads is so left-wing. It's wild. Anything I post there, I will have the left-wing, far-left communist mafia after me. Which is funny because X is actually right-leaning, at least in my purview. Right? So, you have this very funny thing where you can post it. Based on what you say and who you want to antagonize, how to completely flip out threads with anything that's even slightly right-leaning or pro-capitalism. Whereas X is all that. And so, it is a really funny thing. But overall, I think X has never been stronger.
I think it's a great product right now. Are you saying there's no neutral platform? Hmm. No, there's no neutral platform. Dave, where... I feel like even when you... That was sarcasm. Even when you had your... You half-quit social media. But you stayed with X, right? Why? Because I agree with you that X is the... It's the network of technology, right? It actually always has been. X was born in the tech community. I remember, actually, in the early days of X... It's funny, I'm sitting here in South Park, and I remember when Twitter started in South Park, and people would call it the nervous system of tech.
You'd be able to get in there, and you just kind of see the neurons of tech firing. And it's meandered, Sam said. It's gone in and out of various different phases, and the feature set has changed, and the people working on it have changed. But since it launched... Well, the feature set really hasn't changed very much. Yeah. I mean, they've added things, taken things away. They launched payments. I didn't touch that with a 10-foot pole, but yeah. There's parts of it that have gone, and some, whatever. And I agree, Nikita's doing a great job, and Elon's doing a great job. But I think it's...
If you work in the tech business, if you're a technologist, it's where the conversation is. And so, it's not on threads. It's not on Reddit. It's definitely not in Facebook group. Where else would you go? It's the only place that you can go to have that conversation in the world right now. Are there... The other example of this was Demis Asabas posted his treatise on AI regulation as an X post. And so, that was also really interesting to me. Does super technical discussion happen on X? I actually didn't understand why Mark Zuckerberg didn't post his treatise on X as a post rather than behind a subscription paywall on the Wall Street Journal. Well, I think he did both.
And don't... I don't like what you do with your subscription paywalls. But behind a premium community. The message got out. The message got out. But there's definitely a vibe shift on rival executives. So, if you guys were in charge of X, what would you do? Because I assume it's still a bad business. And in case you've forgotten, it's really a business nested in an AI company, nested in a rocket company that will also be nested in the car company. So, it's pretty abstracted away from major revenue streams. I don't... I think it's fine. I mean, look, it was quite a good vibe by Elon, right? And I think it doesn't have to make money, right?
To me, it's not a great business. It's fine for it not to be a great business. Paying 40, what, billion for a power play that isn't a good business is a thing very few people in the world can stomach or do. And obviously, there's a lot of pain involved in rationalizing it. But if the thing kind of makes money and who cares? Let it... It's a great power lane. It means that when Elon wants to post something, everyone will see it. And that he can't be deplatformed, just as Trump has tope social. And, look, again, it's an expensive non-financial asset that way, but it's a pretty valuable one, is my view, right?
I don't think we'll ever see it be an important business, but that doesn't mean it's not an important product. Yeah. Just interesting. Good job, X. Hanging on in there. Yeah, I mean, by doing... What they did is they took a thing. They made some obvious fixes. They made it not lose a shitload of money with a bunch of people who weren't doing anything, all of which takes guts and makes sense. And they didn't fuck it up. So, nice. That's a good business strategy. Don't fuck it up. It's interesting. One of the things that they added to X over the last... I think it's been in just the last two weeks was they launched this X money feature, which has gotten almost no press.
Yeah, yeah. Nobody's really talking about it. I don't know how successful it will be, but it's a big money-moving feature. But it doesn't make any... You can't make any money. It's like how Venmo is an important product, but never will make money and never has. It's not an important business. I still would like someone to unlock me out of, to put me back in my Venmo account, if anyone listening knows how to do that. Oh, yeah. This is funny. So, this... For anyone listening who wants to know, this is very funny. I literally am user ID on Venmo. I'm the third name on the IP.
My handle used to be Sam, three letters, because, again, I had handle number three, which has all sorts of funny stories. I got kicked off, and I can't get back on. Now, Jess has been kicked off and can't get picked on. I can't... It's wild. And so, I actually messaged the founders of Venmo. I was like, guys, the actual founders, guys, and they were like, we don't even know anyone, so we can't get you back anymore. I know who you should talk to. I've given up. It turns out Zelle works. I've given up. Oh, yeah. This is funny. So, this... For anyone listening who wants to know, this is very funny. I literally am user ID on Venmo. I'm the third name on the IP.
My handle used to be Sam, three letters, because, again, I had handle number three, which has all sorts of funny stories. I got kicked off, and I can't get back on. Now, Jess has been kicked off and can't get back on. I can't... It's wild. And so, I actually messaged the founders of Venmo. I was like, guys, the actual founders, guys, and they were like, we don't even know anyone, so we can't get you back anymore. I know who you should talk to. I've given up. It turns out Zelle works. I've given up. No, no, guys, I know who you should talk to. I actually was trying to transfer some crypto through Venmo, and it got really messed up. So, you're actually having...
You should be kicked off. All I've done is just sat here. No, they have a crypto feature. They've got crypto. They do. They do. It's a very long story. I was trying to pay somebody back for something, some concert tickets, and they were more expensive. No, they were more expensive than Venmo's limits for what you can transfer. And so, I was using crypto. And the crypto somehow got lost. And to Venmo's great credit, they actually credited me the money that they lost. And so, I've got a good connection there now. This would be most helpful, Dave. Thank you. The number of customer service problems I've had to solve through much bigger company CEOs recently is hilarious.
But for whatever reason, Venmo, I can't fix. No, we're hopeless. Have you guys been following the saga of Lillian Wang? I don't even know who that is. I don't know. I don't know who that is. I will regale you in the saga, which is currently 80% of my X feed. So, Lillian Wang was a co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, Mira Mirati's startup that is slowly but undoubtedly starting to release products so we know what they're actually doing. And earlier this week, maybe the end of last week, she penned a lengthy missive, as one does in this age, about her mental health suffering by working so hard. So, she was leaving Thinking Machines Lab.
And this was met with Mira cheering her on for taking care of herself and a whole wave of all that good take-the-time-you-need. That's what you do when you fire someone. Praise. Well, guess I read in The Information today that she started back up at OpenAI. That's funny. Oh, the bastion of mental health. So, we're in that phase. Of the cycle. Much of the commentary is exactly what you said, Sam. A strange move for your mental health. Now, if we're being generous here, I can see how being at a bigger company and having a more defined role might be different. Yeah, OpenAI is a big company.
Guys, if you're just leaving a company to go to a rival two days later, don't pen an essay about mental health. That would be my advice. Keep it to yourself. Who cares? Because now poor Lillian Wang has made herself this symbol of something, including this phase of the AI talent war. But anyway. It might be pretty smart. Let me, let me, let's play, let's game, let's game this out. We're talking about her. We're talking about her. My question is, what are all these people going to do that signed this other letter? Which letter? What's the other letter? There's this other letter where a thousand people that work at Frontier Labs have signed a letter saying,
Oh, the slowing down letter? We must slow it down. And... Yeah. Oh, I hate these letters. I hate these letters. I don't understand this letter because if you want to slow it down, just quit. You don't have to work on... Exactly. You don't have to work on AI anymore. No, no. They want to get paid the same for doing less. If you don't want to work on capitalist AI, you are totally welcome to come join the actual nonprofit AI company. Capitalist AI. You can come work on nonprofit AI at Open Claw. We're happy to have you. That's even more stressful. You have no resources and you have to compete. Like, you can come work with me. We'll settle Mac minis around the Bay Area.
Like, what? Dave, I also have so many questions. Are you still, are you in a Waymo? Are you still paying your Lyft or Uber driver, or what is your situation right now? As we wrap, I want, yeah. Like, you're just sitting in the back of a car. No, I'm in my Tesla. Your Tesla has been driving you around? No, I'm sitting in South Park in a parking spot. Oh, I see. You're parked. I thought you were moving for the first part. Oh, sorry. But look, in all seriousness, this whole AI slowdown thing, it's exactly like people wringing their fists for climate change. Right? We're like, we should use less power. It's like, it doesn't matter what you say. It's a global world.
If someone else will just do it. So, there's this weird thing where, I don't know. I think a lot of it comes down to people's sense of their unique talents and abilities. Right? Where everyone has been told that they're these special snowflakes, that only they can do what they do. And that is a big part of how they justify their lives and things like that. And so then they're like, oh, well, we're the only special people, so if we all say we should slow down, that's meaningful. It's not. There are plenty of people in China who can do the same shit. Right?
And so I just think it's all a bunch of theater, of people trying to wrestle with the fact they're probably really overworked and really stressed out and don't know if their stock is worth anything and want to be told they're doing good, but maybe they're not, and a bunch of existential stuff. So I do think this is all emotional, existential noise from people that should be ignored. Yeah. These letters don't sit well with me. Not because, I mean, if I were to argue the other side, in developing these technologies, there are important choices to make that could broadly fall under the responsibility of the model and that kind of thing.
And I think it's important to draw attention to those. But if you really feel like you're not at a place that's doing that, you just shouldn't work there. You shouldn't attach your name to a letter. I think what it is, honestly, is all of these people have Oppenheimer complexes and think they're working on the Manhattan Project. Right. And this is well documented and well understood. The Manhattan Project is fascinating. Well documented. The fact they all have Oppenheimer complexes. Right. And they think they've invented atomic weapons. Can you describe what that means? Like, what does that mean? What is Oppenheimer complex? They think they're Oppenheimer.
At least the leaders believe they're Oppenheimers. Right. And that they're on this existential mission where they will unleash hell, in the form of atomic weapons. But they have to do it because if they don't do it, someone else will do it. But they're the one person who can do it in the best possible way. But they're the one person responsible enough to do it. And then they're going to launch the atomic bomb, which is AGI, and say, I have become Vishnu the destroyer. And they're going to have an emotional complex about it, but be the most powerful man in the DOE in the history of the world. So if they're not Oppenheimer, they're von Neumann. They're in the game.
And so then, there was a bunch of angst about developing the nuclear bomb, as there should have been. And there was a bunch. But it's not the same thing. Right. For a whole bunch of reasons. Atomic weapons were much harder to create. There was a much smaller community of people, literally dozens, that knew what they were doing, and then huge armies of people who didn't know what they were doing around them. But people really desperately want to be Oppenheimer in this age. Or they want to feel the emotional importance of their lives like that. And it just keeps playing out over and over and over. And you're just like, guys, you're not Oppenheimer.
This is a very different game. This is a very different era. So if they're not Oppenheimer, they're von Neumann. They're in the game. And so then and there was a bunch of angst about developing the nuclear bomb, as there should have been. And there was a bunch. But it's not the same thing. Right. For a whole bunch of reasons. It's the atomic weapons were much harder to create. There was a much smaller community of people, literally dozens, that knew what they were doing. And then huge armies of people who didn't know what they were doing around. But people really desperately want to be Oppenheimer in this age.
Or they want to feel the emotional importance of their lives like that. And it just keeps playing out over and over and over. And you're just like, guys, you're not Oppenheimer. This is a very different game. This is a very different era. And AGI, while in theory, if you really believe you're building God, is on the level of atomic weapons, you're not. There are lots of gods. It's more like a pantheon. And it's going to be super complicated. To bring it back to one of Jess's questions at the beginning of the episode, where Jess, you were talking about Sam interacting with his agents.
Do we think that there's a crisis of meaning going on that's even worse than the one we had during social media? I read Sam's ex post on that. I read Sam's ex post on that. This is the most viral thing I've written in a year, right? With my whole thing about AI as a crisis of meaning. Look, Dave doesn't read everything you have. It is pinned, though. It is pinned. It is not. That's not what I'm referring more to. These folks that are working in AI in San Francisco and interacting with agents all day, isolated to Zoom. They actually don't have an emotional outlet. So maybe the emotional outlet is coming out through X and through these types of letters.
And I'm actually kind of curious about what the cultural societal thing is that's going on here beyond just the Oppenheimer-ness. If the question is, are they all, is everyone going crazy? I think the answer is probably, yeah. Let's pick up these deeper questions. Let's pick them up. We need Brett as part of this conversation. Before we wrap, anyone got some culture advice? I got, I have one rant, one rant. You guys, in your many hats, are also organizers of conferences. I am also an organizer of conferences.
What do you say to the EA that reaches out to you on behalf of someone you invited to your conference last year to get the dates for next year's conference just so it's on their calendar? Oh, what a move. Far before invitations have gone out. Far before invitations have gone out. We were on the same email about this. One, the person who did this we love and was obviously invited. Obviously invited. It's actually a brilliant move, and I kind of want my EA to start doing it to a bunch of conferences I'm not even invited to. Because if you just, I'm going to reach out to Alan and Kyle. Jessica is looking forward to Sun Valley next year. Just confirming.
It's like, that's a great way to get invited to Kyle. I was like, oh, fuck, we already invited them, right? So I think it's a great move. Very, very smart. And I'm in. Super smart. Super smart. So both, in one case it was the person themselves. Dave, when is the lodge next year? Yeah, exactly. Well, I just, I laugh. In one case it was the person themselves. We can invent conferences we want other people to put on and just ask for when the date is for them. Yes. It's like, I'm just doing so-and-so's schedule 10 months from now. 10 months from now. When is your Davos dinner, Jessica? Yes. Anyone you want to have dinner with, you're like, hey, your EA reaches out.
Like, hey, Sam wants to know when the date is for our annual dinner, blah, blah, blah, per se. And you don't want to ring this poor EA's neck. You find, you message Benson's assistant. And you're like, Jessica would like to know when our December dinner is. You guys, there's an even better version of this. Which is that you proactively put the thing on their calendar with Google Calendar. You just put the events into their calendar. People do this to me. We did this for our holiday party a couple of years ago. We actually just put the events on everybody's calendar. And it works like a chart. No, but this is different. This is different. No, no. Yeah. But it's related.
And I'm with Dave. This actually happens to me all the time. People will put events. And the problem is I have someone who does a lot of scheduling for me.
And so sometimes it's unclear whether it's something I asked for or not, or something that's approved. And every once in a while I'll end up in one of these and be like, fuck, I didn't ask for this. The same thing with emails. They got you. The best move in an email if you want to meet with someone is start in the middle of a conversation as though you have already been talking to the person. Because then you're like, oh, shit. And then it's a lot of work. I have to figure out if we actually were talking before or whatever. So the pickup in the middle with all these assumptions is a very smart BD move.
I think for anyone fundraising or doing sales, imply you're already talking. Right? Don't start. Don't say, hey, I'd like to pitch you on a new thing. That's immediately going to get deleted. But if you're like, continuing our conversation from last week, you're like, oh, shit, were we talking? Picking this back up. So good. Well, let's just say, let's give props where props are due. Major power move of the week is having your EA just run the dates by, making sure we block it out for something you haven't yet been invited to. Yeah. Brilliant. So take that tip for what you will, people. We're bringing you all the news, all the inside baseball.
And I think now, if you lasted this long with this shitty audio, God bless you. I actually want to know who you are. No, it'll get fixed in post. Please message me because you will be a forever fan. And Jess, I will let you know that the dinner has been put on the table, so we should probably eat. Indoors or outdoors? What's the weather like? I mean, it's so confusing. You're not that far from me. Indoors, and all the children are calling over, so. I'm enclosed. Most people work inside. Okay. With that, we'll see you back here next week for another episode of More or Less. Bye. See you guys later.
If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a virtual high five by rating it and reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Find more information about each episode in the show notes and follow us on social media by searching for @moreorless, @DaveMorin, @Lesson, @JLesson, and as for me, I'm @Britt. See you guys next time. And like it's the Manhattan Project is fascinating. Well documented. The fact they all have Oppenheimer complexes. Right. And like they think they've invented atomic weapons. Can you describe what that means? Like what does that mean? What is what is Oppenheimer complex?
They think they're, you know, they're they they believe they're Oppenheimer. At least the leaders believe they're Oppenheimers. Right. And that they're on this like existential mission where they will unleash hell. Right. In the form of atomic weapons. But they have to do it because if they don't do it, someone else will do it. But they're the one person who can do it in the best possible way. But they're the one person responsible enough to do it. And then they're going to launch the atomic bomb, which is AGI, and say, I have become Vishnu the destroyer.
And they're going to have an emotional complex about it, but be the most powerful man in the DOE in the history of the world. So if they're not Oppenheimer, they're von Neumann. They're like in the game. And so then and there was a bunch of angst about developing the nuclear bomb as there should have been. And there was a bunch. But it's not the same thing. Right. For a whole bunch of reasons. It's the atomic weapons were much harder to create. There was a much smaller community of people, like literally dozens, that knew what they were doing. And then huge armies of people who didn't know what they were doing around.
But people really desperately want to be Oppenheimer in this age. Or they want to feel the emotional importance of their lives like that. And it just keeps playing out over and over and over. And you're just like, guys, you're not Oppenheimer. Like this is a very different game. This is a very different era. And AGI, while in theory, if you really believe you're building God, is on the level of atomic weapons, you're not. There are lots of gods. It's more like a pantheon. And it's going to be super complicated. To bring it back to one of Jess's questions at the beginning of the episode, where Jess, you were talking about Sam interacting with his agents.
Do we think that there's a crisis of meaning going on that's even worse than the one we had during social media? I read Sam's ex post on that. I read Sam's ex post on that. This is the most viral thing I've written in a year, right? With like my whole thing about AI is a crisis of meaning. Look, Dave doesn't read everything you have. It is pinned, though. It is pinned. It is not. That's not what I'm referring more to. These folks that are working in AI in San Francisco and, you know, interacting with agents all day, isolated to Zoom. You know, they actually don't have an emotional outlet.
So, like, maybe the emotional outlet is coming out through X and through these types of letters. And, you know, I'm actually kind of curious about what the cultural societal thing is that's going on here beyond just the Oppenheimer-ness. If the question is, are they all, is everyone going crazy? I think the answer is probably, yeah. Let's pick up these deeper questions. Let's pick them up. We need Brett as part of this conversation. Before we wrap, anyone got some, like, culture advice? I got, I have one rant, one rant. You guys are in your many hats. You are also organizers of conferences. I am also an organizer of conferences.
What do you say to the EA that reaches out to you on behalf of someone you invited to your conference last year to get the dates for next year's conference just so it's on their calendar? Oh, what a move. Far before invitations have gone out. Far before invitations have gone out. We were on the same email about this. One, the person who did this we love and was obviously invited. Obviously invited. It's actually a brilliant move and I kind of want my EA to start doing it to a bunch of conferences I'm not even invited to. Because if you just, like, I'm going to reach out to Alan and Kyle. Jessica is looking forward to Sun Valley next year. Just confirming.
It's like, that's a great way to get invited to Kyle. I was like, oh, fuck, we already invited them, right? Like, so I think it's a great move. Very, very smart. And I'm in. Super smart. Super smart. So, like, both, in one case it was the person themselves. Dave, when is the lodge next year? Yeah, exactly. Well, I just, I laugh. In one case it was the person themselves. We can invent conferences we want other people to put on and just ask for when the date is for them. Yes. It's like, I'm just doing so-and-so schedule 10 months from now. 10 months from now. When is your Davos dinner, Jessica? Yes. Anyone you want to have dinner with, you're like, hey, your EA reaches out.
Like, hey, when is, Sam wants to know when the date is for our annual dinner, you know, blah, blah, blah, per se. And you don't want to, like, ring this, like, poor EA's neck. You find, you message Benson's assistant. And you're like, Jessica would like to know when our December dinner is. You guys, there's an even better version of this. Which is that you proactively put the thing on their calendar with Google Calendar. You just put the events into their calendar. People do this to me. We did this for our holiday party a couple of years ago. We actually just put the events on everybody's calendar. And it works like a chart. No, but this is different. This is different.
No, no. Yeah. But it's related. And I'm with Dave. This actually happens to me all the time. Is people will put events. And the problem is I have someone who does a lot of scheduling for me. And so sometimes it's unclear whether it's something I asked for or not or something that's approved. And, like, every once in a while I'll end up in one of these and be like, fuck, I didn't ask for this. The same thing with emails. They got you. The best move in an email if you want to meet with someone is start in the middle of a conversation as though you have already been talking to the person. Because then you're like, oh, shit. And then it's a lot of work.
I have to, like, figure out if we actually were talking before or, like, whatever. So, like, the pickup in the middle with, like, all these assumptions is, like, a very smart BD move. I think for anyone fundraising or doing sales, imply you're already talking. Right? Don't start. Don't say, hey, like, I'd like to pitch you on a new thing. That's immediately going to get deleted. But if you're, like, you know, like, continuing our conversation from last week, you're like, oh, shit, were we talking? Picking this back up. So good. Well, let's just say, let's just give props where props are due.
Major power move of the week is having your EA just run the dates by, you know, making sure we block it out for something you haven't yet been invited to. Yeah. Brilliant. So take that tip for what you will, people. We're bringing you all the news, all the inside baseball. And I think now if you lasted this long with this shitty audio, God bless you. I actually want to know who you are. No, it'll get fixed in post. Please message me because you will be a forever fan. And Jess, I will let you know that the dinner has been put on the table, so we should probably eat. Indoors or outdoors? What's the weather like? I mean, it's like so confusing.
You know, you're not that far from me. Indoors and all the children are calling over, so. I'm enclosed. Like, most people work inside. Okay. With that, we'll see you back here next week for another episode of More or Less. Bye. See you guys later. If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a virtual high five by rating it and reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Find more information about each episode in the show notes and follow us on social media by searching for at more or less, at Dave Morin, at Lesson, at Jay Lesson, and as for me, I'm at Britt. See you guys next time.